Why Singleplayer Games Have Short Product Life? One Reason: Project-based Development

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TF2 is so vastly different from TFC and QWTF that it has the same number of classes and classes have identical names. 2 forts is also a wholly original map. It was neither in QWTF, Q3F, TFC or Unreal Fortress.

TF2 is a mod to Team Fortress at best and a ripoff at worst. Yes, I know which people made which. That doesn't make any difference because I'm not talking about imaginary property. I'm talking about design and gameplay.

They play entirely differently. TF was a capture the flag game, whereas TF2 is a game of capturing and holding locations and revolves entirely around medics. (When it's not being a hatmaking simulator and collectable game.) CTF mode, while present, is widely considered to be bad and sees little competition play, not that TF2 was designed to withstand high end play to begin with. I may not like the direction TF2 took but it is clearly a sequel instead of same ol'.

TF2 is so vastly different from TFC and QWTF that it has the same number of classes and classes have identical names. 2 forts is also a wholly original map. It was neither in QWTF, Q3F, TFC or Unreal Fortress.

TF2 is a mod to Team Fortress at best and a ripoff at worst. Yes, I know which people made which. That doesn't make any difference because I'm not talking about imaginary property. I'm talking about design and gameplay.

That is pretty much ALL it has in common. Go watch some TFC videos because you clearly don't remember how the game actually played.

Eh. It's a thin line I suppose. Saying that a game like TF2 is an "official version of team fortress" or that Portal is an "official version of narbacular drop" is a bit of a stretch still I think. They draw direct influence from those titles, but no more than a game like Duke Nukem 3D did from Doom or WoW did from EQ. They are their own games.

It's not so much that they're 'official' versions, rather that Valve saw a good gameplay idea (Valve didn't come up with it themselves), bought the team, and went "Okay, now basically do that game, but this time we'll give you artists." The original core gameplay mechanics isn't really a Valve original; they bought them by buying up the team that came up with them. I mean if I buy up every idea then I'm not the most original man in the world, am I?

I'm not necessarily saying that this is a bad thing because Valve have picked very well in what they buy and they're not an EA sweatshop, but the original point stands that Valve have pretty much bought out teams that developed the core gameplay mechanics externally to Valve. They weren't totally in-house originals. The Doom to DN3D comparison doesn't really hold save for the fact that they're both FPS games. They don't even share an engine. DN3D is very different to Doom, and 3D Realms didn't buy out id Software and use the FPS mechanics for their own game.

That said...

Originally Posted by b0rsuk

TF2 is a mod to Team Fortress at best and a ripoff at worst. Yes, I know which people made which. That doesn't make any difference because I'm not talking about imaginary property. I'm talking about design and gameplay.

Yeah, this isn't really correct. TF2 isn't a mod to QWTF. It's a sequel to be sure because it has some of the original team and it shares many features with QWTF that have been there since the beginning. The 9 class structure, maps and objectives like 2fort, all of that stuff is undeniably TF and it comes from Robin Walker and the original team, not Valve. But that doesn't make TF2 a mod to TF, nor does it make TFC a mod to TF, and it certainly doesn't make either a rip-off. Both have introduced new playstyles and mechanics beyond the original QWTF. As the others have pointed out TF2 plays very differently to TFC, which plays very differently to QWTF. The entire game pace has slowed down over time. QWTF was a circle-strafing, fast paced nightmare. TFC was a clusterfuck... literally, because everybody just spammed grenades. TF2 is a much more refined TF experience.

TF2 can't be a ripoff of TFC/QWTF and can't be a mod to either. It shares the same heritage but clearly underwent a major restructuring. But with all that said, it doesn't change the fact that Team Fortress is not a Valve original. Valve bought Robin Walker and the TF team and got them to do an official port to the Half Life engine to show off the mod capabilities of the game. Really, Valve's only totally in-house game where their team came up with the core idea and didn't purchase one was Half Life!

I'm not necessarily saying that this is a bad thing because Valve have picked very well in what they buy and they're not an EA sweatshop, but the original point stands that Valve have pretty much bought out teams that developed the core gameplay mechanics externally to Valve.

I'm happy when Valve does it instead of when EA does it because, as you said, not only is Valve not a sweatshop (you need to set deadlines to do that) but the teams they hire aren't already-published developers. EA buys out profitable companies. Valve buys out mod teams. To go back to the Kickstarter debate, these are guys who match professional artists, marketers and QA teams to promising programming teams, and as such are pretty good at producing good games.

Last edited by Nalano; 14-05-2012 at 03:16 AM.

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